1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle travel control apparatus which generate a travel route that a vehicle is to take and generate a velocity pattern according to the travel route, and which control the traveling of the vehicle on the basis of the travel route and the velocity pattern.
2. Description of the Related Art
A vehicle travel control apparatus that generates a target velocity pattern for a travel route of a vehicle, and controls the traveling of the vehicle on the basis of the velocity pattern is described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-296915 (JP-A-2007-296915). In the case of alerting a driver by giving a reaction force to the accelerator pedal under a predetermined condition, an inter-vehicle distance maintenance assist apparatus described in JP-A-2007-296915 induces the driver's operation of an accelerator pedal so as to achieve an accelerator operation amount that makes it easy for the driver to feel the reaction force of the accelerator pedal, by changing the relation between the accelerator operation amount and the drive torque into a correspondence relation therebetween that is different from an ordinary correspondence relation therebetween. In this manner, the inter-vehicle distance maintenance assist apparatus securely alerts the driver by giving a reaction force to the accelerator pedal.
The inter-vehicle distance maintenance apparatus of JP-A-2007-296915, by altering the relation between the accelerator operation amount and the drive torque, is able to make it easy for a driver of the vehicle to feel reaction force of the accelerator pedal, and is able to induce the driver to perform an accelerator pedal operation, and to maintain a proper inter-vehicle distance to a preceding vehicle. In this case, by making it easy for the driver to feel reaction force of the accelerator pedal, the apparatus induces a desirable state in which the inter-vehicle distance between the host vehicle and a preceding vehicle is a proper inter-vehicle distance. On the other hand, when the host vehicle is in an undesirable state, it is necessary to evade the undesirable state of the host vehicle. However, the inter-vehicle distance maintenance apparatus of JP-A-2007-296915 is not able to evade an undesirable state of the host vehicle.